Q: I’ve been following the current bodybuilding training trend of hitting each muscle once a week with lots of sets. Growth has been slow, but you’d think that with so much volume and intensity at one workout, it should take a full week for that muscle to completely recover, right?

Well, training each muscle with lots of volume once a week will produce some growth—if intensity is high enough to produce significant damage. The question is how much is enough?

Less volume for each muscle but with more frequent body part hits has proven a better, more sure-fire method for optimal hypertrophy in most cases and works as a sort of anabolic phasing… [Read more…]

Q: I used the 10-Week Size Surge program years ago and gained almost 10 pounds of muscle on it. I’m now getting close to 40, so I wanted to report how I’ve been using it to add a lot of middle-age muscle. I’ve merged Anabolic Reload and the Phase 1 Size Surge routine like this: On Mondays I use high-to-low-rep Reload [STX] on lower body and standard heavy Size Surge work on upper body. Then Friday I reverse that. Wednesday is arms and abs only, so I just alternate, doing Reload one week and heavy Size Surge sets the next.It’s been two months, and I look better than I did in my 20s.

Devising new mass routines that work for you as an individual is part of the fun of bodybuilding. Of course, packing on loads of new mass and looking awesome from your new freak-factor training is even better. [Read more…]

Q: I’m thinking about the 10-Week Size Surge for part of my winter workout mass training while I’m piling in the calories (can’t wait for Thanksgiving). I know Phase 1 is big, basic work three days a week. But I also like the total-fiber swole of Anabolic Reload. Can I merge them somehow to really jack my gains?

You didn’t mention your level of training or your age, but we’ll address that in a moment. Let’s talk general mass-building terms… [Read more…]

A: Absolutely not. You can make amazing progress simply spreading out your meals over five or six smaller feedings a day—without taking a single supplement. If you’re using one of the diets in X-treme Lean, choose appropriate substitution meals to replace the protein shakes in that diet. For example, when a meal replacement is listed, you can use one of the X-treme Lean Meal Options on page 42 of our e-book instead. You could eat the soup with a few slices of cheese as a midafternoon snack or turkey jerky and raisins (only a few; they are high in carbs) or an apple. Even a couple of fast-food chicken tacos can work in a pinch, as listed in the e-book, or a chicken or tuna salad. Always be sure there are at least 20 grams of protein, no more than 20 grams of carbs (10 grams is better) and the total calorie count for the meal is around 300. Those should be your guidelines for every meal (except the one right after your workout; more on that in a moment).

Powders are mainly for convenience. Most people don’t have time to heat up food, for instance, or even scrounge up some turkey jerky and fruit. It’s easier to rip open a packet of powder with the right protein, carb and fat percentages and blend up a shake (Steve takes his to work premixed in a thermos, so all he has to do is shake and drink—quick and easy).

Do keep in mind that whatever you eat costs money, too. Does it add up to the cost of a meal replacement packet? Well, each packet is often about $2, but you can get 40 grams of protein with various vitamins, minerals and immune system boosters. Does the time, effort and ingredients of a solid-food meal you have to whip together cost less? You’ll have to determine that. We think protein supplements should be included in your grocery bill because they are food and you use them to supplement your other meals. That means the quantity of solid food you eat should go down if you use powders, which will significantly reduce your grocery bill and make room for at least a few protein supplements.

As for post-workout shakes, they can get pricey. Serious bodybuilders have no problem shelling out a few bucks for a quality post-workout powder because they know it’s their most important muscle-building meal. After a workout is when the anabolic window is wide open, so you need to get enough of the right nutrients.

Postworkout powders have fast carbs and fast protien, which is best for optimizing that prime grow time.

A: That’s an excellent start, and adding X Reps isn’t just a good idea because they help build muscle fast—they also help you burn fat. The reason: growth hormone and testosterone, two very potent fat burners.

If you’ve tried X Reps, you know they produce an incredible searing effect at the end of any set. We’ve mentioned in our e-zine that GH is linked to muscle burn. Think about it: With X Reps you can do an intense heavy set on a compound exercise, like bench presses, and then end that set with power partials to significantly magnify the burn. You know the big exercises help trigger testosterone, and with X Reps you can force more GH as well thanks to the burn they produce. It’s a fat-burning double whammy—a much more efficient method than anything out there, with almost zero wasted effort. (That’s one reason we say that each X-Rep set is at least three times as effective as a straight set to failure.)

If you’ve been training for any length of time, you know it’s very difficult to achieve a burn on the big, compound movements. But with X Reps you can make it happen every time—producing a searing firestorm finale. Do you see why we’re so fanatical about X Reps—and why they were the key method during our one-month metamorphoses?

So definitely include X Reps in your fat-burning plan. As for cardio, you can start slowly, say two 20-minute sessions a week of medium-intensity work and build from there. Make gradual increases so your body adapts and you don’t burn too much muscle. The real key, however, will be your weight workouts which will jack up your metabolism long after you leave the gym. [For more on the best fat-burning techniques, including cardio-surge programs, gradual calorie-reduction diets and the new High-Definition X-Rep workout, get a copy of X-treme Lean.]

The X-treme Lean e-book details our fat-burning strategies, as well as Becky Holman’s (she’s on the cover) and also includes our cardio programs, meal-by-meal diets, key fat-burning nutrients and how we used each. We also outline and explain the new High-Definition X-Rep workout that’s designed to boost GH and testosterone so you melt fat as you pack on muscle (yes, it can be done!).

Q: I got the Size Surge 2.0 and X-treme Lean. Really great info. Is the Size Surge Phase 2 Workout the one Jonathan used to get in ripped, freak-physique condition? I know the diet he used is in X-treme Lean, but there’s also a workout in that e-book. Is that the one?[Read more…]

Q: I read that you guys got super ripped without doing any cardio. I also saw that Arnold had incredible fat loss with no cardio, relying on weight training only. Is that true?

A: According to John Balik, Publisher of IRON MAN magazine and Arnold’s friend and one-time training partner, the only thing close to real cardio that Arnold did was occasional walking or running on the beach… [Read more…]

Q: In X-treme Lean you have the “High-Definition Workout” (pages 76-78), and you say to use it five days a week. I don’t think I’ve seen you recommend that many workouts in a row. What’s the reason [for five consecutive days of training]?

A: After training for photo shoots for 10 years off and on, we realized that one of the keys to getting lean is hormone-zone training, which is where you keep testosterone, GH and other anabolic, fat-burning hormones up as high as possible. [Read more…]